July 11, 2002

ERIC ALTERMAN can't stop defending Hugo Chavez. But I don't see where his comments about Hitler's election differ from what I said below.

Alterman adds an unattributed version of Godwin's Law:

[W]e have a rule in my house. If you have to go to Hitler, you’ve already lost the argument.

Well, we have a rule in my house, too: If you keep claiming that Gore really won in Florida, you've lost the argument, too. And the election!

UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus isn't having any of it:

If he was a right-winger, then the behavior of the Chavez government and the mass protests against him would be an international cause-celeb and Chavez would be rightly drummed out of the community of "respectable" government leaders. Since he's a Left-wing Fascist and friend of Castro, they're ignored (and the Liberals and Leftists who usually claim to speak for "human rights" seem to admire him and say that anything against him is "contrary to democacy"). Typical.

Indeed, the double standard here is quite visible.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Dennis Bumb writes:

RE: Eric Alterman's "Hitler Rule"

Mr. Alterman says "[We] have a rule in my house. If you have to go to
Hitler, you've lost the argument."

I'm a big fan of Godwin's Law, but when the topic of conversation is, I
don't know, DICTATORS, then maybe bringing up Hitler is somewhat apropos.

Does the Alterman Rule also apply to discussions of genocide or the Nazis?
That must make for some weird conversations.

Well, I've never visited Eric's house, so I couldn't say.